Dr Giovanni Luca Masala

Dr Giovanni Masala has a PhD in Applied Physics (AI in medical applications) in 2006 and a "Laurea" (MSc+BSc degree) in Electronic Engineering (path in AI) in 2002, both at the University of Cagliari, Italy. Before joining the University of Kent, he was a Senior Lecturer and Leader of the Robotics Lab at Manchester Metropolitan University. Previously, he was a Lecturer at the University of Plymouth, leading the Big Data group.

Giovanni obtained grants for more than £1.9M (EPSRC, InnovateUK, EU) in AI topics. Examples of current active projects are InnovateUK NORAH (National Waste And Recycling Robotics Adoption Hub), EPSRC BRIDGES for Dementia Network (Building Research Innovation co-Developing Greater Empowerment and Support for people living with Dementia), EPSRC, TRANSFORM-VHT: Transforming Healthcare through Virtual Human Technology in Underserved Communities and EPSRC Advancing Cognitive Architectures For Robots Via UK–Italy Collaboration Using Abel.

Giovanni is an Associate Editor in the journals: Frontiers in AI and Robotics, Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health, and Robot Learning. Furthermore, he has extensively published his research in more than 100 papers across ranked journals and conferences.

At the University of Kent, he is the Head of the Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics (AIDA) group and he leads the Robotics and Assistive technologies CEntre (RACE).

Giovanni belongs to the following research groups:

• Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics Group

Giovanni is interested in a range of topics:

• Robotics (cognitive robotics, mobile robotics and Human-Robot Interaction) 
• AI and Computer Vision in Healthcare and assistive technologies 
• Cognitive models for language understanding 
• Deep Learning and large language models (LLMs)  

Giovanni taught a range of modules for BSc and MSc students:

• COMP6009/COMP7003 - Cognitive Robotics (Convenor) 
  

 And in recent years was involved in:

• COMP6025/COMP7017 - Deep Learning (Convenor)
  
• COMP6010 - Computational Intelligence in Business, Economics & Finance

He also supervises several students’ research projects (MSc thesis in AI and robotics)  

Giovanni is looking for students interested in applications that match the research interests: AI models, Cognitive models in robotics, HRI and cooperative AI/robotics.

The “Cognitive Robotics and Autonomous Systems (CoRAS)” laboratory at the School of Computing has access to several humanoids (Unitree G1, NAO, Pepper), Cobot Agilex S Kit,  and socially interactive robot platforms (Buddy Pro, Q.BO One, Amy A1), mobile robots (Unitree Go2, Turtlebot Waffle Pi, Burger), pet-like companion robots and devices like AR Epson glasses and Microsoft HoloLens.  

• Senior Member of IEEE Computational Intelligence Society
• Fellow of The Higher Education Academy UK
• Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust Honorary contract 
• Visiting Professor at University of Pisa, Italy 
• Visiting Professor at University of Sassari, Italy